The present invention relates to a new and distinct cultivar of Nelumbo plant, botanically known as Nelumbo nucifera, commonly referred to as Sacred or Indian Lotus, and hereinafter referred to by the name ‘Zhijiang Qiuyue’.
The new Nelumbo plant is a product of a controlled breeding program conducted by the Inventors in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China. The objective of the breeding program is to create new Nelumbo plants that have attractive and unique flower forms and flower colors.
The new Nelumbo plant originated from a cross-pollination in July, 2014 of Nelumbo nucifera ‘Youyi Mudan’, not patented, as the female, or seed, parent with Nelumbo nucifera ‘Ziqi Xilai’, not patented, as the male, or pollen, parent. The new Nelumbo plant was discovered and selected by the Inventors as a single flowering plant within the progeny of the stated open-pollination in a controlled greenhouse environment in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China in July, 2015.
Asexual reproduction of the new Nelumbo plant by rhizome divisions in a controlled environment in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China since April, 2017 has shown that the unique features of this new Nelumbo plant are stable and reproduced true to type in successive generations of asexual reproduction.